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NetOps vs. NetDevOps vs. SecOps vs. EdgeOps: Your Guide to Navigating the Networking Terms

by | Jan 25, 2022 | EdgeOps, NetDevOps, SecOps

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NetDevOps, SecOps, and EdgeOps are crucial components of a holistic and integrated approach to network infrastructure. However, the way each practice works to achieve this objective is not immediately apparent, and understanding this paradigm can be vital to a successful implementation.

This article helps to clarify those dynamics by explaining what each concept does and how they complement each other.

What is NetDevOps?

NetDevOps refers to the convergence of DevOps and networking. It is a practice that encourages communication and collaboration between network architects and operators to automate manual and traditional network processes.

One way NetDevOps achieves automation is via software-defined networking (SDN), which supplies and configures network appliances such as routers and switches. SDN enables businesses to control network behavior through code, allowing users to replicate processes across hardware.

SDN and other automation methodologies facilitate NetDevOps collaboration by enabling multiple people to concurrently work on the same systems, appliances, and applications. In a traditional IT environment, infrastructure configuration, testing, and deployment tasks take place in a sequential fashion, which leaves some team members waiting around for their turn to contribute. In a NetDevOps environment, you can deploy entire configurations to many devices at the same time with SDN, trigger automatic tests to run at certain benchmarks, and automatically integrate necessary software with just a few button clicks. Every member of the NetDevOps team collaborates nearly simultaneously to achieve the same objective.

The goal of NetDevOps is to foster a culture and environment in which network design, tests, and deployment happen quickly and reliably.

NetOps vs. NetDevOps

You may be more familiar with the term NetOps than NetDevOps, though they mean essentially the same thing. The NetOps methodology also applies DevOps principles to enterprise network management, such as collaboration and automation. The word NetOps de-emphasizes the software development (Dev) aspect of IT operations, but NetOps still involves abstracting networking functions as code with SDN and automation. For that reason, NetDevOps is becoming a more popular term for this methodology in modern IT environments.

What are NetDevOps roles in the integration process?

Let’s break down each integration process in NetDevOps and its primary goals.

Breaking down communication silos

The primary goal of NetDevOps is to improve efficiency by fostering team collaboration and communication. More specifically, it allows teams to be more pragmatic and efficient when faced with an issue, including distributing tools throughout the IT infrastructure. Once the enterprise establishes a collaborative architecture, silos are eliminated and teams benefit from more effective communication.

Reducing manual intervention with SDN

Manually revising network infrastructure is time-consuming and prone to human error. To address these inefficiencies and ensure that automation scripts are error-free, SDN employs certain DevOps practices, such as continuous integration (CI) and continuous deployment (CD). These scripts can be re-deployed on numerous servers, rolled back, and made available to all teams.

Promoting network automation

The command-line interface (CLI) performs network operations manually, device by device. Network automation can better connect networking with IT operations and tools, allowing for more agile network workflow. It also helps automate the management, testing, and deployment of virtual and physical devices inside a network. With network automation, enterprises benefit from quicker service start, less human error, and more effective wireless management.

What is SecOps?

Security operations (SecOps) is a partnership between security and IT operations teams similar to DevOps’ role as a collaboration between development and operations teams. It helps organizations automate critical security tasks and meet performance goals without compromising on security.

SecOps follows a set of security operations center (SOC) practices, processes, and tools, such as governance, risk, and compliance (GRC) systems and security information and event management (SIEM). Integration of these security measures occurs atypically early in the software development life cycle (SDLC), which is known as “shifting left”.

In a typical SDLC—which includes product design, development, testing, and deployment—security comes at the latter life cycle stages, sometimes after testing. However, SecOps introduces security measures much earlier in the life cycle, providing better safeguards as the product development progresses.

For example, a typical SDLC looks something like this:

  • Step 1: Planning – You determine the requirements for the software’s functionality
  • Step 2: Design – You model the look and functionality of the software
  • Step 3: Development – Your dev team writes the software code
  • Step 4: Testing – Your QA team tests the code to ensure it functions correctly
  • Step 5: Security – Your security team integrates security monitoring and protection measures
  • Step 6: Deployment – You release the software to production

Security is almost an afterthought, occurring right before deployment. Often, this can lead to friction between teams – most business units want to release the software as soon as possible, but security integration may cause delays.

A SecOps SDLC looks more like this:

  • Step 1: Planning – While you determine the requirements for the software itself, you also plan the architecture for the secure development and production servers you’ll deploy to support the software.
  • Step 2: Design – Development and design teams model the software, and security and ops teams stand up secure development environments.
  • Step 3: Development – As developers write software code and upload it to the repository, automatic security checks run to test for vulnerabilities
  • Step 4: Testing – On a secure testing server, the QA team runs functional and performance tests while the security team runs additional vulnerability and security integration tests
  • Step 5: Deployment – You release the secure software to a secure production environment

Not only does SecOps prioritize security to better fortify your software, but it also streamlines the SDLC, removing an entire step from the process. SecOps empowers you to release secure, high-quality software faster.

How does SecOps complement NetDevOps?

While NetDevOps facilitates work process automation, SecOps provides the security to make those things happen safely, safeguarding NetDevOps practices from cyberattacks.

In other words, SecOps acts as a bodyguard for NetDevOps. Two primary examples are as follows:

Securing critical data center infrastructure

Both SecOps and NetDevOps promote open collaboration between security, networking, and operations teams, especially when it comes to infrastructure management and monitoring.

In traditional IT environments, separate monitoring and management tasks are siloed in different departments, with security, operations, and networking teams all working with different software and solutions on different pieces of your infrastructure. SecOps instead brings all teams together, working within the same monitoring, incident response, and infrastructure management systems. This gives your key SecOps and NetDevOps engineers a holistic view of your environment, allowing them to collaborate and ensure your infrastructure is fully protected.

Securing continuous delivery and continuous deployment (CI/CD) pipelines

SecOps processes ensure that CI/CD pipelines (as discussed earlier) emphasize both security and speed. SecOps teams use CI security techniques to provide a secure codebase and in CD to automate security-related tasks.

For example, one of the cornerstones of the CI/CD methodologies is automated testing (for functionality, performance, and integration) which runs continuously throughout the SDLC. With SecOps processes, you can also add automated security testing at key stages in your CI/CD pipeline. That means security issues can be found and remediated as early as possible, allowing you to release your software faster.

By combining SecOps and CI/CD processes, teams and technology may work together to protect the network and codebase while avoiding bottlenecks. SecOps teams can then leverage automation to minimize application and service outages and expedite security audits.

What is EdgeOps?

EdgeOps is a quasi-DevOps approach adapted to the internet of things (IoT)/edge environment for managing and overseeing the project development lifecycle. It addresses edge computing’s difficulties, considers the features of edge-computing solutions, and utilizes deployment methods adapted to the edge environment.

A single unified dashboard can follow the progress of a project that involves multiple technologies, tools, and experts. Independent work streams or pipelines can simultaneously manage activity from several teams or organizations. EdgeOps can process, analyze, and orchestrate large volumes of machine data and events at microsecond transactions.

How does EdgeOps enhance NetDevOps?

EdgeOps is, at its essence, the application of NetDevOps principles to the edge-to-cloud continuum. Examples are as follows:

Improving data processing

By maximizing the efficiency of their manufacturing equipment, chipmakers can enhance the yield and quality of their semiconductor production processes. EdgeOps helps enterprises boost productivity and efficiency through artificial intelligence across critical areas of the infrastructure.

Promoting cost-efficient and timely data transfers

The EdgeOps platform enables real-time data ingestion, processing, and analysis by operating at the equipment source. It can therefore address data security problems and the increased cost and timing of edge-to-cloud data transport.

Allowing for scalability

Companies no longer need to develop centralized, private data centers to expand data collecting and processing. Building, maintaining, and replacing these hubs during expansion can be cost-prohibitive.

Instead, organizations can quickly and cost-effectively scale their edge network reach by combining privately-owned servers with regional edge computing data centers. EdgeOps flexibility allows companies to adapt swiftly to changing markets and scale their data and revise requirements more efficiently as they grow.

The future impact of NetOps, NetDevOps, SecOps, and EdgeOps

Secure, cloud-based automation and IoT will have increasingly significant global implications moving forward. The collaborative and agile nature of these three Ops will play an essential role in this transformation.

While each provides a different piece to the network integration puzzle, all focus on improving communication and promoting efficiency. Better automated processes, shorter feedback loops, and shared responsibilities are due to their interlace.

Want more information about how these practices help promote a seamless network infrastructure integration?

Contact ZPE Systems and get started today!

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Why Choose Nodegrid as Your Data Center Orchestration Tool

by | Jan 14, 2022 | Data Center Management

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Managing and orchestrating remote data centers presents a number of challenges, which is why you need the right tools for the job. Nodegrid as a data center orchestration tool is a family of hardware and software solutions that address these unique challenges.

Let’s take a look at why you should choose Nodegrid as your data center orchestration tool. But first, let’s explore the challenges of orchestrating the data center

Data center orchestration challenges

Some of the biggest data center orchestration challenges you’re likely to face include:

  • Outages from errors and lockups
  • No central management of all your data center devices
  • Slow or buggy device deployments

For example, say a switch in your remote data center locks up, and it needs troubleshooting or a power cycle. How do you remotely fix a switch that’s not connecting to the network? Or, maybe Kubernetes wants to stand-up a new Palo Alto Firewall. How can you deploy and license that firewall in a cost- and time-efficient way? You need a data center orchestration tool that accommodates remote virtual presence, provides central management, and supports full pipeline automation —like Nodegrid.

Why choose Nodegrid as your data center orchestration tool?

The Nodegrid family of hardware and software solutions addresses extensive data center orchestration challenges.

Nodegrid provides a virtual presence in remote data centers

Nodegrid allows you to have a virtual presence in your remote data centers so you can prevent or shorten outages without needing an engineer on-site. Some specific solutions that facilitate this virtual presence include serial consoles, out-of-band management, and environmental monitoring sensors.

Nodegrid environmental sensors collect data about the conditions in your data center so you can respond to issues in real-time as if you were physically present. For example, if there’s a water leak in the data center, or someone opens your cabinet without prior authorization, you need to know as soon as possible so you can prevent downtime and other issues. Nodegrid’s sensors monitor factors like temperature, humidity, smoke, airflow, tampering, and more, so you have a complete view of your physical data center environment.

Nodegrid serial consoles, or NSC connect to all your data center devices so you can remotely monitor, manage, and troubleshoot your entire infrastructure from one central location. Nodegrid offers the first high-density, 96-port serial console server with ports on the front and back to save valuable rack space. Plus, the NSC runs on Nodegrid OS, a secure and open Linux-based architecture, making it compatible with every device in your data center. The Nodegrid OS gives you the freedom to orchestrate across vendor solutions and environments

Next-gen out-of-band, or OOB management ensures you can access, troubleshoot, and reboot devices in your data center even if you lose your ISP (Internet service provider) connection. Nodegrid serial consoles come equipped with 4G/5G cellular OOB capabilities so you can reach all your critical data center infrastructure during an outage, allowing you to resolve issues without sending an engineer on-site. In addition, Nodegrid serial consoles go beyond serial access, giving you access to all your devices including Ethernet, PDUs, IPMI, environmental sensors, etc.

Nodegrid saves you time, money, and resources by giving you a virtual presence in your data center. Environmental sensors alert you of potential issues before they cause downtime, serial consoles provide you with access to all your critical infrastructure, and OOB allows engineers to quickly troubleshoot and fix outages without flying to the data center. All of this adds up to more efficient operations with fewer and shorter outages.

Nodegrid consolidates infrastructure management behind one pane of glass

The Nodegrid solution also makes it easier to orchestrate and manage all your remote data center infrastructure from behind one pane of glass. In addition to the NSCs, which connect all your data center devices to one central location, there are two software data center orchestration tools: Nodegrid Manager and ZPE Cloud.

Nodegrid Manager consolidates all your physical and virtual data center infrastructure management into one vendor-neutral dashboard. You can use Nodegrid Manager to get a central overview of your clusters, including power management, VM orchestration, networking, serial consoles, storage, and service processors.

ZPE Cloud extends your data center orchestration to include your cloud and edge architectures and rolls everything up into a web-based platform you can access from anywhere in the world. ZPE Cloud provides an overview of distributed IT environments so you can manage and orchestrate your entire environment without needing multiple tools. Plus, the ZPE Cloud serves as a file repository for all your config files and scripts used for orchestration.

With Nodegrid’s data center orchestration software, you can streamline infrastructure management by giving your engineers a single, centralized UI to work with. Nodegrid consolidates infrastructure management behind one pane of glass to optimize your data center orchestration.

Nodegrid supports NetDevOps automation

NetDevOps seeks to remove barriers between networking, development, and operations teams by automating and orchestrating as many tasks as possible, requiring very little human intervention. NetDevOps automation breaks down data center configurations into a series of small, repeatable tasks that can be applied to many of the same devices simultaneously. This reduces the amount of time it takes to spin up new data center infrastructure and significantly reduces the risk of human error in your configurations.

Nodegrid’s entire ecosystem runs on a vendor-neutral x86 Linux OS, which means you can integrate it seamlessly with your NetDevOps automation and orchestration solutions such as Ansible, Puppet, and Chef. Plus, Nodegrid solutions support automated configurations and updates using technologies like infrastructure as code (IaC), software-defined networking (SDN), and zero touch provisioning (ZTP).

  • Infrastructure as code lets you write server configurations as a series of automated steps run according to a playbook. That means you can automatically deploy the same configuration to hundreds of devices at the click of a button.
  • Software-defined networking is essentially the same as IaC, but for networking appliances like routers, switches, and wireless access points.
  • Zero touch provisioning is another way to automate your data center configurations. Nodegrid ZTP devices use DHCP to connect to a TFTP (The Trivial File Transfer Protocol) server and download and install the necessary configuration files without any human intervention. That means you can ship factory-condition appliances to remote data centers. All that needs to be done is plug them into the power and network, and they’ll essentially configure themselves.

Nodegrid supports data center orchestration across all your different solutions, creating a foundation upon which you can build out your NetDevOps environment in any way you like and make any necessary changes in the future.

Nodegrid addresses all of your biggest data center orchestration challenges with a family of innovative, vendor-neutral solutions.

Data Center Orchestration Challenges

  • Outages from errors and lockups
  • No central management of all your data center devices
  • Slow, buggy device deployments

Nodegrid’s Data Center Orchestration Solutions

  • Virtual data center presence via environmental sensors, Nodegrid Serial Console, and remote OOB management
  • Nodegrid Manager and ZPE Cloud to provide vendor-neutral, centralized management and orchestration of your entire data center infrastructure
  • Nodegrid’s NetDevOps automation through IaC, SDN, and ZTP

 

Go above and beyond with Nodegrid as a data center orchestration tool

The Nodegrid data center orchestration tool is a complete solution that covers all your data center management and automation needs. Environmental monitors, serial consoles, and OOB management enable you to remotely monitor, troubleshoot, and fix issues without a physical presence in your data center.

Nodegrid Manager and ZPE Cloud consolidate the management and orchestration of your data center infrastructure behind one pane of glass. Nodegrid’s automation support allows you to build out your NetDevOps infrastructure and streamlines the configuration of data center devices.

Are you ready to make Nodegrid your data center orchestration tool?

Request a free demo today.

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Edge Computing Trends to Expect in the Post-Covid World

by | Jan 14, 2022 | Edge Computing

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Over the last years, IT professionals have placed a larger focus on edge computing for businesses as they have increasingly turned to remote work in response to Covid-19. Because of this shift, network engineers are developing new use cases for edge computing in some unforeseen fields.

In this article, we discuss six trends you should keep an eye on, including:

  1. Edge computing in agriculture
  2. 5G edge computing
  3. Fog computing
  4. Kubernetes
  5. Retail
  6. SASE and SSE

Edge computing in agriculture

The success of the Internet of Things (IoT) in domestic and industrial spheres with concepts like the smart home or inventory tracking has opened the door for more extensive applications.

Recently, engineers have applied IoT to the agricultural sector to improve crop production and fight food scarcity. The applications here include;

  • Tracking animals
  • Optimizing fertilizer use
  • Analyzing soil quality
  • Monitoring crop growth and water usage.

Utilizing sensors and actuators to trigger generalized devices automates many routine tasks on the farm, allowing farmers more efficient use of their land. Similarly, it provides them with needed analytics they can use to plan further development on land that they seek to expand their operation.

5G edge computing

Although we tend to think of the transition to 5G in terms of consumer benefits and cell phones, the improved speeds of 5G offer new opportunities for the IT sector. There is still plenty of time and effort required before this comes to fruition; implementing 5G over the last year has brought with it several challenges:

  • Varying speeds depend on the provider
  • Lack of infrastructure such as 5G nodes
  • The need for technology with 5G integration

Like any other technology, edge computing is restricted by the physical limitations of what hardware and software can do. With the improved speed that 5G offers compared to 4G, edge computing will be opened up to new use cases requiring the ability to analyze large amounts of data in near real-time. For example, self-driving cars require the ability to quickly process information gathered by external sensors to navigate traffic successfully.

The size of the global edge computing market will explode to $61.14 billion by 2028—a compound annual growth rate of 38.4%—according to Grand View Research. “It’s quite evident that 5G and its probable benefits have the potential to create a powerful network based on the technology that is expected to reorganize the industry architecture,” the company reports.

Fog computing

Although the movement to the cloud has long been touted as the ultimate data storage solution, network engineers have noted that the massive amount of data being transferred online has proven to be too much even for the cloud. This veritable traffic jam of information has led to slower connections for remote users. Enter fog computing; by storing data in decentralized locations, fog computing provides a computing layer between the cloud and the network edge.

Fog computing shortens the distance between points and makes data more secure. As remote work becomes more of a reality for a growing number of workers, we expect fog computing to become more of a mainstay in how we use technology daily. The benefits of fog computing are larger than just individual; however, businesses can use fog computing technology to monitor everyday functions like temperature, waste disposal, and power consumption.

Kubernetes

One of the major challenges to effective edge computing is getting the software to run reliably when moving it from one environment to another. Kubernetes makes it possible to run data-heavy applications from the network edge, reducing the strain on the cloud infrastructure. It also brings these capabilities as close as possible to the end-user. These systems:

  • Reduce latency
  • Balance global load balancing
  • Reduce bandwidth

Kubernetes also focuses on scalability; the pods and nodes used for small businesses, for example, may similarly be smaller and more manageable than those used for large enterprises. This brings large workloads closer to the user themselves and ensures that they have solutions properly sized for their needs.

Retail

The retail sector has seen a great deal of growth in online sales; however, most retail sales still happen in stores. This multi-billion-dollar industry has been progressively turning to edge computing in recent years to assist in both. The need for edge computing in retail is primarily motivated by the growing need to harness the explosion of data in their stores. By bringing their computing to individual stores, retailers gain the ability to:

  • Analyze sales data for more effective promotions and discounts
  • Constructively manage inventory
  • Increase store security with alert notifications triggered by sensor devices

Real-time updates offer retailers a greater deal of maneuverability in the post-covid era, alerting them to potential problems before they grow to an unmanageable state. This results in heightened employee productivity, improved customer experience, and reduced costs.

SASE and SSE

Secure Access Service Edge (SASE), as well as its corollary Security Service Edge (SSE), have become the mainstay of edge computing during the pandemic due to the sudden intense need for remote working capabilities. These edge computing solutions bring the network closer to the user, removing the strain from overworked data centers having to process large amounts of data.

SASE is the architecture that companies want to achieve. SSE is an essential component of this, as well as Access. SSE + A = SASE. Without SASE, traffic has to be backhauled through the data center so the main firewall can secure it, but this causes slowdowns and poor user experiences. With SASE, traffic can stay connected and secured via the cloud without passing through the data center.

Edge Computing Trends Connect The World

New edge computing trends focusing on agriculture, remote work, or data storage offer more avenues and applications for existing technology. These new technologies ensure that, when the post-covid era comes, technology will emerge ready to take on whatever challenges it brings.

We at ZPE have been working with large and small enterprises for years, covering edge computing trends tailored to clients of every size. Our products are designed to be scalable for any needs, meaning that they can grow with you every step of the way.

Let’s have a conversation.

Reach out to us today for a consultation to see what ZPE can do for you.

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Simplifying Network Edge Orchestration With a Single Platform

by | Jan 7, 2022 | Network Edge Orchestration

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One of the most prominent edge computing challenges any organization may face is deploying and managing their critical remote edge infrastructure. For instance, the lack of network edge orchestration can lead your organization to have gaps in the automation pipeline, which means more manual work.

In addition, you may end up managing and securing many different boxes from many vendors, increasing your operational complexity, risk of human error, and attack surfaces. Conversely, if you stick with one vendor’s ecosystem, that could hamper your automation and orchestration efforts. Overcoming these challenges requires a simplified and unified network edge orchestration platform.

Solving the challenge of deploying and managing critical remote edge infrastructure

Automation and orchestration are key to the NetDevOps transformation process, and that should include both your on-premises infrastructure and your edge network. Ideally, your network orchestration platform will extend to your entire enterprise network, including remote branches, data centers, and clouds. One way a network edge orchestration solution addresses the challenge of deploying and managing critical edge infrastructure is by automating many configuration and management tasks. This helps reduce human error and speed up deployments.

However, your remote edge infrastructure may consist of many different appliances from many different vendors. With a highly complex remote infrastructure, your attack surfaces increase and your automation capabilities decrease. But, replacing your edge infrastructure with vendor-homogenous devices is costly, plus you’ll be locked into a single ecosystem, orchestration solution, and feature roadmap that may not align with your business goals. That’s why you should look for a network edge orchestration platform that uses an open architecture for complete vendor-neutral control and automation.

Some other critical components of an ideal network edge orchestration solution include:

  • Monitoring and environmental sensors to warn you of issues with your remote infrastructure
  • Out-of-band (OOB) management to remotely manage your infrastructure
  • A solution that replaces many branch appliances with a single box and aloud dashboard for 360-degree management

Luckily, there’s a way to get all this functionality and more in a single platform with ZPE Systems.

How ZPE simplifies network edge orchestration with a single platform

ZPE Systems simplifies network edge orchestration by consolidating your infrastructure devices and management into a complete and unified solution. ZPE’s Linux-based Nodegrid OS helps you avoid vendor lock-in and allows you to have orchestration freedom, while the ZPE Cloud is the vehicle that accommodates it. You can orchestrate across devices and environments, and use ZPE Cloud to store scripts and gain access to your orchestration chain.

ZPE Cloud

ZPE Cloud gives you complete control over your edge infrastructure from anywhere in the world via a single web-based application. With ZPE Cloud, you can run the configuration, access, and management of your distributed IT environments without needing to deploy technicians on-site. Plus, if you need additional functionality, you can add ZPE Cloud Apps, which include:

Nodegrid Data Lake. Nodegrid Data Lake gives you visibility into a valuable machine, application, and user experience data. You can then analyze and visualize this data and put it to work for your enterprise, giving you opportunities to optimize processes and detect early warning signs of issues or attacks.

SD-WAN. ZPE Cloud’s SD-WAN app gives you powerful edge network functionality, including:

  • Automatic VPN creation to provide secure tunnels to your hub, SSE (Security Service Edge), or SASE (Secure Access Service Edge) provider
  • Automatic link quality detection for visibility into connections
  • Automatic path switching to optimize traffic flows and network performance

Palo Alto Prisma Access. ZPE Cloud’s Palo Alto Prisma Access app allows you to manage your Prisma Access solutions via ZPE Cloud, further consolidating your network edge orchestration. This empowers you to protect your edge users with Secure Access Service Edge (SASE), eliminating the need to backhaul that traffic and affect the performance of your enterprise network.

Learn more about these network edge orchestration features and the other ZPE Cloud Apps.

Nodegrid Services Routers (NSR)

The Nodegrid family of services routers, or NSR, gives you robust routing and switching capabilities out of the box while also providing you with a single, vendor-neutral point of access to all your critical edge infrastructure. NSRs support OOB management, guest OS and network functions virtualization (NFV), and Docker/Kubernetes.

Nodegrid Hive SR. The Nodegrid Hive SR is ZPE’s newest and most innovative network edge router. The Hive SR is a fully-integrated, 5-in-1 branch gateway with an open architecture for true vendor neutrality. You get SD-WAN, security, compute, NetDevOps, and OOB in one box, making it easier to consolidate and simplify your network edge.

Learn more about the exciting new Nodegrid Hive SR, or check out ZPE’s other edge router models:

  • Nodegrid Bold SR: a fully-loaded WiFi, and cellular branch services router
  • Nodegrid Gate SR: a small but powerful edge router with PoE, and support for legacy systems
  • Nodegrid Net SR: a highly modular network edge services router for a completely customized deployment

Environmental Monitoring

ZPE’s environmental monitoring sensors monitor for airflow, smoke, unsecured cabinet doors, and more. These sensors integrate seamlessly with the Nodegrid ecosystem of hardware, VMs, and cloud management, giving you a complete virtual presence in your remote data centers without needing to be there physically.

Zero Touch Provisioning

Zero touch provisioning (ZTP) uses automatic provisioning to configure edge networking devices without human intervention. Without ZTP, you have two options for configuring remote edge appliances:

  • You configure and stage the appliances at HQ and ship them to your remote data centers. This creates a huge security risk—what if your package is intercepted or delivered to the wrong address? A malicious actor could potentially spin up your device and access your critical remote infrastructure.
  • Your engineers travel to the remote data center to stand up your new equipment, or you pay for managed services from on-site data center technicians. In either case, your network edge deployments are expensive and time-consuming.

ZPE Systems provides true zero touch provisioning to streamline critical remote infrastructure deployments. As soon as a Nodegrid device comes online, it uses DHCP to connect to a TFTP server and download and install the necessary configuration files. That means you can remotely deploy an entire branch without ever leaving your office.

Zero Trust Security Framework Foundation

Security experts, including analysts at Gartner, recommend that enterprises move toward the zero trust security model. ZPE provides the framework with which to build a Zero Trust Network Access (ZTNA) infrastructure so you can secure and harden your entire edge architecture from the bottom up. The Zero Trust Security Framework Foundation ensures that hackers can’t take advantage of your network edge orchestration and automation by integrating with ZTNA authentication platforms like Okta that provide single sign-on (SSO), multi-factor authentication (MFA), and other zero trust identity and access management (IAM) functionality.

Combining ZPE Cloud with Cloud Apps, Nodegrid Services Routers, environmental monitoring sensors, zero touch provisioning, and zero trust network access will give you a complete network edge orchestration solution.

Simplify your network edge orchestration and more with ZPE Systems

No matter how uniquely challenging your network edge architecture may be, ZPE’s network edge platform can help. For example, you can deploy Nodegrid NSRs with ZTP and OOB to an oil rig with only LTE and satellite internet access, which will then give you complete control over an infrastructure that’s entirely offshore. Or, you can use our consolidated solutions to create a branch-in-a-box from scratch with SD-WAN, edge compute, SASE on-ramp and ship it anywhere in the world.

ZPE Systems’ vendor-neutral, single-platform network edge orchestration solutions are highly customizable to fit every use case.

Learn more about simplifying your network edge orchestration with a single platform.

Contact ZPE Systems today or request a free demo.

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How to Reduce Data Center Carbon Footprints

by | Jan 7, 2022 | Data Center Management

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Data centers face a uniquely modern challenge when it comes to climate. Government estimates place data center energy consumption at 10 to 50 times the energy per floor space of a normal commercial building. These estimates are further complicated by tenuous statistics on water consumption, which is not universally reported. As the use of information technology grows, businesses can adopt practices aimed at reducing data center carbon footprints.

This article identifies three major areas of improvement to reduce data center carbon footprints.

  • Remote Management & Truck Rolls
  • Data Center Consolidation Strategies
  • DCIM Management Tools

Remote management cuts down on truck rolls


“Truck rolls” refers to the traditional model of troubleshooting problems at the data center, in which a technician would have to be physically there to examine the issue. This process is estimated to cost hundreds of dollars per visit and wreaks a devastating environmental impact to maintain—for example, instances where the technician would need to be flown out to get to the place. In many of these cases, that impact is made for no reason, as “no-fault found” (NFF) visits account for a staggering number of visits to centers.

For this reason, remote management capabilities are one of the primary keys to reducing data center carbon footprints. Instead of having to fly in a technician, network engineers can access the data center software from any remote location. By allowing network engineers to regulate data center issues remotely, they reduce the:

  • Need to have technicians physically brought into the center
  • Financial, time-consuming, and environmental burden 
  • Number of NFF visits since engineers can remotely check for these problems

Remote management tools have become remarkably popular due to the manageable ground they provide to data centers looking to mitigate the avoidable environmental costs of daily operations.

Data Center Infrastructure Consolidation


Bringing the data center online presents numerous questions—what is the best way to do it? What are the risks? What hardware or software assets does my data center have that might affect the consolidation process?

Network engineers need to overcome these challenges, but the good news is they have several options regarding data center consolidation. The first is straightforward cloud migrations (i.e., moving all the data in the center online, where it can be accessed and deployed more rapidly). This method offers the most direct path to reducing data center carbon footprints. However, the process of doing so is long (six months to two years) and potentially jeopardizes data being transferred if no fail-safes are being utilized. 

For this reason, data centers are taking a more moderate approach to the cloud. There are a few basic approaches to this model: network managers can work with a “public cloud” (such as Microsoft Azure or AWS Direct Connect) for enhanced reliability and agility in the face of necessary disaster recovery.

Whatever the method, there are three significant reasons to look at data center consolidation options. These include:

1. Reducing data center carbon footprints

The demand for data services is rising exponentially, according to the International Energy Agency global data centre electricity use in 2020 alone was 200-250 TWh, or around 1% of global final electricity demand. Consolidating your data centers means reducing the amount of hardware used at each physical location, where fewer machines will accomplish the work once done by many. Beyond the general energy consumption reduction inherent in this process, some data centers will also consolidate physical locations, resulting in fewer physical centers. 

2. Enterprise benefits

Data center consolidation means that enterprises will be able to save on the cost of buying new hardware. Similarly, it can reduce software licensing costs since everything is being moved onto fewer systems. A great example of this is how the federal government achieved substantial savings since it started consolidating its data centers in 2010, according to the Government Accountability Office (GAO) “19 of the 24 agencies reported achieving an estimated $2.8 billion in cost savings and avoidances from fiscal years 2011 to 2015.”

3. Improved efficiency

The more hardware a center has, the more possible points of failure. Data center consolidation reduces error by eliminating potentially problematic hardware before it starts to fail. Consolidation also eliminates possible entry points for potential threats to the center (both physically and in terms of cybersecurity), improving security. 

According to the Uptime Institute’s 2021 Global Data Center Survey, outages, while less extensive than in previous years, have become way more expensive. Over 60% of the respondents reported losing more than $100,000 to downtime. Of that 60%, 15% lost over $1 million.

Whatever the reason, the fact remains that these solutions reduce data center carbon footprints across the board. This places data migration as the most likely long-term option for data centers in the near future. Is also important to note that the ‘cloud’ is basically someone else’s data center, so once more companies migrate to the cloud, this will force cloud providers to rethink their data center configurations.

Reducing data center carbon footprints with DCIM tools

Although consolidation reduces carbon emissions produced by data centers, it is essential to note that data migration to the cloud will take time. In some cases, migration may not be a viable option—a company may not have the resources to afford the process, for example.

In this case, reducing data center carbon footprints focuses on fighting the heat generated by multitudes of servers, routers, and switches. Analyzing cooling, regulating energy consumption, and optimizing rack layout and configuration are all central challenges. 

  • Free air cooling (using cold external air to cool data centers) effectively reduces data center carbon footprints. Still, it requires building a center in a naturally cold place, which is not always realistic and can be very expensive to move.
  • Switching liquid cooling systems towards greywater sources (such as seawater) reduces the amount of potable water consumed by data centers. This also requires moving/building centers to places where fresh water is available.
  • Hot aisle/cold aisle configuration consists of facing server racks with heated exhausts towards air conditioner intake vents and rack fronts facing air conditioner outputs. This distributes heat and energy more effectively, but doesn’t reduce costs as much as other solutions.

All solutions outlined above require a constant stream of incoming data to help engineers evaluate what solutions work for their centers. It is advisable to consider first investing in equipment compatible with environmental sensors, which are instrumental in collecting such data. These tools aid network engineers both in planning their consolidation strategy and Sensors will help to monitor environmental conditions so that they can optimize their systems.

Help the environment, starting with your data center

Although data centers face this problem, there is a large variety of technological solutions. Remote management tools reduce the environmental impact of costly truck rolls, while DCIM tools like rack layouts and free air cooling mitigate the daily effect of data center operations. To be more specific for truck rolls, the environmental impact is fuel consumption and for normal operations, the impact is power consumption.

These tools can serve as a potential short-term fix while engineers look into cloud-based consolidation options like data migration, or even serve in the long term as they strive toward a net-zero center.

However you evaluate your technology strategy, you want to make sure you have the right tools in hand. ZPE’s Nodegrid offers robust remote management tools to reduce your truck rolls, reduce data center carbon footprints, and keep your engineers constantly connected to the status of your center. It similarly offers external sensors which provide you with critical data to adjust or reevaluate your approach, when necessary.

Learn more about how ZPE Nodegrid reduces data center carbon footprints.

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